I really hate the phrase ‘Presence not Presents’ and today, I’m going to tell you why along with sharing my thoughts on the current trend of present-shaming!

There’s a lot of present-shaming going on around social media at the moment with more judging taking place than you see on the X-Factor and Strictly combined and today, I wanted to tell you just what I think about the number of presents that you choose to buy your Children and the amount you decide to spend on those presents.

You know, just because 99% of people of social media have an opinion about it and I don’t like to feel left out.

Are you ready for my opinion? Good.

I DON’T CARE

I mean, I care a little bit. I’d rather you didn’t go into debt to pay for them and I may judge you a teeny bit if you haven’t saved up through the year but go out and spend a fortune on a credit card that you’ll more than likely still be paying off next Christmas. And I might even roll my eyes a little bit if you just buy tat for the sake of filling out your present pile but on the whole, there’s no judgement from me.

I don’t care what you spend on presents at Christmas because it has absolutely nothing to do with me. You can go with the four present rule, you can go completely over the top and spoil your children and I won’t judge you because it has nothing to do with me and I don’t know your circumstances.

Personally, I probably go over the top and for that reason, I don’t tend to share photos of our present piles like half the world does on Christmas Eve – I’d feel obliged to just move a few out of view for fear of the present police judging me.

I feel like I have a good reason though – we don’t have a big extended family who buys presents for my children. There’s just us really and that makes me so sad sometimes. Not because I want them to have more presents but because they don’t have the second Christmas at their Nana’s house like I always had when I was younger and they don’t have the family visits in the month leading up to December where you catch up with people you haven’t seen since last Christmas.

They have the presents under the tree that we buy them and that’s pretty much it so I do sometimes overcompensate and I know that I do but I’m sensible, stick to a budget and use money that I’ve saved up all year to do it so I’m good with that and really don’t care (much) if other people don’t agree.

And I know that some of you are probably typing a comment as we speak to tell me that ‘Presence not Presents’ that make Christmas special and I completely get that. The memories that I have from Christmas with my parents aren’t about the presents that they bought me (although there was an AMAZING sparkly bike with a basket one year that stands out ;-)) but like it or not, presents are a part of Christmas these days.

Obviously, I want to make memories with my children and we have things like our alternative advent calendar helps us to exactly that along with a few other traditions that we have but I also want my children to wake up excited about the presents they’re going to be opening and for them to love their gifts.

My perfect Christmas for my children wouldn’t be Presence not Presents, it would be Presence AND Presents.

We’re in a good space right now where we’re lucky enough to be able to spend time as a family making memories but also to have a lovely pile of presents to wake up to on Christmas morning.  Is that wrong?  We donate to our local food bank regularly, we buy presents for the local toy appeal for children who aren’t as lucky as my two are and we save up to be able to buy our children presents at Christmas.

Where do you stand with Presence not Presents?

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